My Father is Dying
This is unexpected. Not the dying. I’ve been expecting it for months. He’s 86, in bad health—it’s time to die. And the decision has been his to stop treatments (with my mother’s blessing).
What’s unexpected is that I’m enjoying the sadness. I thought feeling “bad” would be bad, but it’s good. It’s hard for me to believe how deeply I’m touched by this experience. I’ve always loved life’s adventures, and this one is so deep, so touching, so profound, that I found myself saying to my wife, “I’m excited about this.”
I’ve been so fortunate to have had the parents I have. I had a wonderful childhood—wounding and all—and a period in my 20s when I was very critical of my parents, followed by reconciliation and breakthrough conversations that have made us so open, accepting, and supportive of one another that this new adventure has taken us to new depths. Every visit with Mother and Dad now is so poignant, so rich….so tiring. I love it, and I come home dead tired, for it’s so emotional. Raw honesty: maybe that’s another phrase that gets closer to capturing what’s happening.
I took them on our last trip together to the top of Petit Jean Mountain last weekend. On that mountaintop Dad told me of a dream he’d just had. He had a number of visitors come to wish him farewell, and at suppertime he invited them to eat in the institutional dining room where they live. Cold broccoli soup was served. It tasted bad, and Dad was mad. He awoke angrily then immediately said to himself—as if it were part of the dream—“It’s not about the broccoli soup; it’s about the people.”
It’s not about his declining body; it’s about the community surrounding him (and us). It’s not about dying; it’s about living. It’s not about the sadness; it’s about love.
I remember dad telling me about how he used to complain to my mother about her poor care of our things. One evening he came home during a rainstorm and saw the children’s toys sitting outside in the yard. He angrily complained to Mother about how irresponsible it was to leave those toys out to be damaged. She had had a hard day (three of us were under six years old with another on the way….it was a typical day), and her response was to cry. Dad said to me, “I realized that I was treating things like they were more important than my own family.”
Dying might be kind of like cold, tasteless, broccoli soup; but it’s really about living. Not mere existence—that would be life without death—but Life. Full Life, with a capital “L”. It’s not bad; it’s good.